


The Dragon (who i thought i was)

by imbellarosa



Series: Here be Dragons [1]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kid!Fic, M/M, SO, Slice of Life, Sort Of, also i can kinda see this happening, also sort of a parent fic, mostly though - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 04:43:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18242621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imbellarosa/pseuds/imbellarosa
Summary: About six months after they’ve gotten rid of the monster, Poppy calls. The child won’t stop crying. Her dragon-egg hangover is gone and the child won’t stop crying and she can’t fucking take it anymore, okay? Quentin sighs and figures that he should have expected that. She’s never been very good at being selfless, and children need everything you can possibly offer, and then they need more. He tells her to bring the baby.Julia thinks he’s crazy.





	The Dragon (who i thought i was)

**Author's Note:**

> I think it's really important for me to say that none of the character's views are necessarily mine re: leaving the child w Q and Eliot. I put these thoughts into words because i think they most authentically fit the characters, and i think that this is very much shaped by their own experiences, priorities, and upbringings. 
> 
> *SPOILER: i also intentionally did not tell you what poppy decides to do, mainly because i do not know myself:END SPOILER*
> 
> The title is from Richard Siken's 'Litany of Things Crossed Out', which I love deeply and have forever and will forever.

About six months after they’ve gotten rid of the monster, Poppy calls. The child won’t stop crying. Her dragon-egg hangover is gone and the child won’t stop crying and she can’t  _ fucking take it anymore, okay _ ? Quentin sighs and figures that he should have expected that. She’s never been very good at being selfless, and children need everything you can possibly offer, and then they need more. He tells her to bring the baby.

Julia thinks he’s crazy.

“Q. Q. Okay, look at me.” He does. She grabs his shoulder and meets his eye, “you can’t take care of a baby right now. I mean. Look at Eliot. He’s got some massive PTSD, and he’s still going to meetings once a day. And you! Q, you don’t sleep, you barely eat, and you watch Eliot like you think he’s gonna vanish at any moment.”

“I -” he can’t deny any of this. They are all definitely going through A Moment, which is what happens when your whole life gets taken apart, apparently. “Yeah, okay,  _ but  _ it’s not this kid’s fault. And I’m it’s godfather.”

“Do you even know their name,” Julia sighs. “Or their gender?”

“I think Poppy was thinking about naming him Draco?” Quentin shrugs. “But I’m just gonna call them Falcor no matter what, so…”

“ _ Not funny.  _ You don’t know how weird it was to see you like that.”

“Well, she’s on her way, so…”

“What’s Eliot going to say about this? Or Kady, for that matter, since it’s her apartment we’re all living in?”

“I...will figure that out when she gets here, okay? But. I don’t know. Poppy. She doesn’t know how to be a mom, okay? She lies, and she manipulates, and she only ever thinks of herself, and I’m willing to bet that the father either a.) doesn’t know that the kid exists, or b.) knows and doesn’t care. I’m not gonna leave this kid in that situation, okay? We’ve seen what happens when children are scared, and unloved, and alone, and maybe we couldn’t save Martin Chatwin, but we can help Falcor. Or Draco. Or whoever.”

She sizes him up. 

“Okay,” her lips are pursed in a way he knows spells trouble. “But you’re telling Eliot.”

***

Poppy shows up a few hours later looking pale and thin. The baby is bright red and screaming at the top of his lungs. Quentin stares. To everyone’s surprise, it’s Eliot who goes right up to Poppy and grabs the baby from her arms.

“He’s got a fever,” Eliot says. 

“I...what,” Poppy looks like she’s about to cry.

“He’s got a fever,” Eliot repeats, deadly calm. “Did you cast anything on him?”

“I - no, of course not,” she says, “I’m a field researcher, not a healer! I wasn’t about to try anything. Besides, we were in Central America. It’s hot there - how was I supposed to know he had a fever?”

“Well, did you take him to the doctor?” Eliot’s voice still has that controlled, measured tint to it.

“I…” Poppy trails off. “I’m trying, okay?”

“Okay,” Quentin intervenes. “Why don’t we all sit down? Eliot’s gonna do some preliminary tests on, okay?’

“Can I just...can I just like sleep for a few hours,” and she does sound exhausted. “We’ve been looking for another species of dragon that was said to be extinct except we have some evidence that it might not be, and he’s been shrieking for nights on end, and I just, I haven’t…”

And that’s when she starts crying, too.

“He’s like three months old,” Eliot raises his voice, “and he’s literally living in what amounts to a biology lab, with God knows what specimen and research. He’s sick, and we don’t know how long he’s been this way, because you thought,  _ oh, it’s just hot in here _ . What the fuck, lady?” 

“ _ All right _ ,” Quentin makes himself heard over both mother and son’s sobs. “Poppy, we have a guest bedroom right up the stairs and two doors to the left. Use that for now. We can figure out the rest once we get his fever down, okay?”

She makes her way up the stairs quickly and they hear a door slam. 

“I can’t believe you slept with her,” Eliot quips over the baby’s shrieks.

“Yeah, well,” Quentin shrugs, “we needed to turn off the voices in my head.” 

The baby screams louder. Eliot looks at it and begins to bounce it.

“Okay, okay,” he says, “shh, shh. It’s okay. It’s okay, baby. We’re gonna make you better, okay? Q” - he looks up briefly - “will you grab me a cool wet rag? Let’s see if we can get his fever down without magic, first. You never know how they react to spells when they’re this young. 

“You got some formula this afternoon, right? Let’s get a bottle of that and see if he’s keeping food down. If not we might have to start researching healing spells.”

***

It shouldn’t surprise Quentin, how good Eliot is with Falcor (and he  _ has  _ to ask Poppy what his name is, because he can’t just keep calling the kid Falcor), but it kind of is. He kind of expected Eliot to just...shy away. It wasn’t his - wasn’t theirs. And still, there he was, telling the baby the story of their coronation.

“And I said, ‘come at me’, yes I did,” he coos. “Because no one knows Patrick Swayze better than I do.”

Quentin huffs a laugh and shakes his head. Eliot looks up.

“And then,” he says in a louder voice, “when I went to put the crown on my head,  _ this one _ stopped me. He told me it should be A Moment.”

“You were being crowned the High King of Fillory, El. It  _ was  _ A Moment. It was a  _ lifetime’s  _ worth of Moments.”

“Two, actually,” Eliot’s normal pitch is back, “because we would have never gone on that quest if I hadn’t been king.

“So anyways,” he turns back to the baby, “there we were, overlooking the Fillorian Sea, and Q grabs my crown and, in his ‘do what I’m telling you voice’ that he should  _ really  _ use more, and he tells me to kneel. And then he asks me if I’m more merciful or brave. And I said I was neither, but I planned on being spectacular.

“I don’t know, kid,” he looks down and keeps bouncing. “I think, now, I plan on being brave. If I ever get my crown back, that’s who I’ll be. I think ‘King Eliot the Brave’ has a better ring to it. Although, really, that should be Q. He’s the one that never lets anything stop him once he’s got his mind set on something. So I don’t know. Maybe I’ll have to pick something else.”

“I’m - I’m not that brave, El,” Q mutters. 

“We’re gonna ignore that, aren’t we,” Eliot continues, “because that’s just a blatant lie. And besides, don’t you want to hear about Aunt Bambi crowning Q? She called him the ‘moderately maladjusted’. I think that suits him, don’t you? Or maybe you want to hear about boats that fly or trees that talk? Or fairies, although they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. Or...you’re asleep.”

He sits down on the couch and sets the little boy gently on his chest. 

“You’re really good with him, you know,” Quentin muses. 

“Yeah, well. We have some experience, don’t we?”

“Yeah, I just...thank you. They didn’t have anywhere to go.”

“Is he staying,” Eliot’s eyebrows shoot up. 

“I don’t...think so? I don’t know,” Quentin shakes his head. “If it were anyone but Poppy, I would say of course not. What kind of person just  _ dumps _ their child on the nearest family? But Poppy does. That’s the kind of person she is. I mean, she stole a  _ dragon egg _ just to see what would happen if she raised it. She gives curses to people because she can’t handle them anymore. Not that - not him. I’m not talking about him.”

“Q, breathe,” Eliot’s voice is low and even and not the least bit angry and  _ shit, he had a meeting this afternoon, didn’t he _ ? “We’re gonna figure this out. Look, his fever’s gone down now. He’s going to be fine after he wakes up. And then when  _ she  _ does, we’re going to talk about next steps, because there’s  _ no way  _ I’m sending a child anywhere he’s not wanted or not safe, okay?” 

“Okay,” he says, and he does breathe. And then, “Hey, don’t you have to go to a meeting?”

Eliot goes still and looks at the time. He can leave now and still make it. The baby on his chest stirs.

“I’m okay,” he says firmly. “Today, I will stay sober. And, today, that’s what counts.”

And Q knows that this next response will be important. He could press Eliot about it. He could insist, or fuss. He could tell him that it’s okay to put himself first, and that sometimes it’s okay to walk away from weird and this is weird to the max. 

“Okay,” he says instead. “Then I’m gonna make us some tea.”

***

Poppy wakes up, and little Falcor is playing with some sparks that Eliot is conjuring.

“You’re good with him,” she comments from the bottom stair. 

“I’ve had practice,” Eliot replies. “Q went out for milk about a half hour ago. He should be back soon.”

“Um. Yeah, okay. I can...feed him? If he’s hungry.”

She didn’t know why she was nervous around this man, who she’d met twice, maybe, who was too thin to be healthy and looked too tired to be well. This is not the man that she’d known two years ago. And still, he had an air of authority about him, and her baby looked at him like they’d known each other all their lives and it was uncomfortable, okay? It was  _ weird _ . 

“You should probably get tested before breastfeeding him again,” he tells her, not taking his eyes off the baby. “We don’t know how he got sick.”

“Oh,” she stammers, and then cautiously joins him on the floor. “Right.”

“Look,” Eliot sighs, “I don’t know you all that well, but I think I should make it clear: I don’t think you know how to be a mother to this child.”

“Oh my God I don’t,” Poppy agrees. “I  _ so  _ don’t. I was really drunk on dragon egg when I decided to keep him, and don’t get me wrong I love him, I do, it’s just that I have no idea what to do with him.”

“Hmmmm.”

“You think I’m a bad mother.”

“Incompetent,” he corrects, “would probably be a more accurate word.”

More uncomfortable silence, broken only by the coos of her little boy, who was still trying to hold light in the palm of his hands.  _ Good luck with that one _ , she thinks.

“Do you still want him?”

“Hmm?” She looks up.

“Do you still want this child?” His words are cold and deliberate. 

“What, are you offering to take him,” she shoots back. 

“I know what it’s like to grow up somewhere you’re not wanted. I would never let that happen to Q’s godchild. Or anyone, if I could stop it. And, as it turns out, this time, I can.”

“I..I don’t know,” she deflates, “like - they all say that motherhood is the best job you could ever have, but fuck that, I study  _ dragons _ . Literally nothing could be cooler than that. And like, I really do love him, but...I’m also  _ so close  _ to this discovery. Like  _ so close _ . I’m not going to pretend that it wouldn’t be a million times easier without him.”

“Well,” he carefully picks her son up and bounces him as he begins to grow agitated. “That’s bullshit. But any excuse for literally dropping your child off and running away would be. So. Just know that if you want him to stay here, he can. He will always have a home here.”

“Thank you,” and she means it, somehow, not knowing if she will accept the offer but knowing it is a hard one to make, all the same.

“Q will always call him Falcor, though.”

“Fuck’s sake, he  _ would _ , wouldn’t he?”

The baby laughs. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! As always, please let me know what you liked/didn't! I LIVE for comments!! And, as always, come say hi at imbellarosa.tumblr.com!


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